|
Yes, an overloaded amp can affect channels whether you are watching them or not. Amps amplify the whole TV spectrum all at once. That is, all the signal going to its input gets boosted to a higher level at its output.
Antennas and amps have no idea who's watching which channels "downstream" from them, so they operate on the entire spectrum as opposed to being tuned according to the channels people are watching. For example, an apartment complex might share one rooftop antenna plus pre-amp and split the signal to many tenants. Any tenant could be watching any channel at any time because the antenna and pre-amp are delivering the entire TV spectrum down to every end-point.
If the total input signal energy exceeds the design capacity of the amp, then you end up with overload. When you over-drive the electronics this way, the amplification is no longer "linear" and you get signal distortion in the output. If the distortion gets bad enough, the channels can no longer be decoded.
Your amp might go in and out of overload depending on how your antenna is aimed. If the antenna is pointed at your strongest local stations (you have very strong signals compared to some people), then too much signal energy will be picked by the antenna and delivered to the amp. This will surely be too much for the amp to handle. If you point away from the strong signals, you might be able to get the signal levels (at the input to the amp) down far enough to avoid overload. It all depends on where the peaks and valleys are in your antenna's gain pattern.
Without the amp, you won't have overload problems, but then your weaker signals will not have the benefit of a signal boost (to compensate for things like cables, splitters, and other components that cause loss of signal). In some cases, if you cannot use an amp due to strong locals, but still have weaker stations you want to get, it may be necessary to go with a bigger antenna to make up for the lack of a pre-amp.
|